Acme Packet lowers its Q4 2011 financial forecast

As service providers maintain a tight grip on their purse strings, Acme Packet (Nasdaq: APKT), one of the early Session Border Controller pioneers, is revising its Q4 2011 earnings forecast.

The vendor has forecast 2011 sales of $308 to $310 million, a lower figure than its previous forecast of $320 million. Taking out some items, profit will be $1.03 to $1.05 a share, compared with a previous outlook of up to $1.18.

It will officially release its Q4 2011 earnings on Feb 2.

Not surprisingly, Wall Street did not like Acme's news as its stock was down 20 percent to $25.40 in early morning trading yesterday. This was the largest decline the vendor has seen since the end of October.

Although service providers are being more cautious about spending money on network gear, Acme said that it is seeing robust demand from enterprise customers for its SBC products.

"Our results were impacted by uncertainty in the North American service provider market," said Andy Ory, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acme Packet, in a statement. "Outside of the North American service provider market, Acme Packet continued to perform very well--particularly in our enterprise business as well as in our Europe and Latin America businesses."